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An Introduction to Spinning BASIC IDEAS, TOOLS, AND TERMS Starting with Wool Sheep’s wool is the most popular fiber CRIMP lots among handspinners because it is easy to spin and versatile. There are dozens of breeds of sheep, such as Lincoln, Romney, Corriedale, Suffolk, and Merino, and each breed produces a unique type less of wool. By choosing from suitable breeds, spinners can use wool to make warm, comfortable, and stylish sweaters, scarves, mittens, hats, socks, afghans, rugs, and many other kinds of garments and accessories. One advantage to making your own yarn is that you can choose the qualities in the fiber that you want to emphasize in your finished project. Yes, the results are definitely worth it! the crimp or waviness of the wool, and the count or A single fleece—one sheep’s annual growth of thickness of the wool fibers (larger numbers indicate wool—usually weighs between 4 and 12 pounds. A finer wool—80s is quite fine, and 40s is coarse). Coarse good spinning fleece costs around $4 to $12 per pound. wool tends to have fewer crimps per inch, and may be Shepherds who produce good wool pay extra attention scratchy or itchy—but it will be very durable. Fine wool to their animals throughout the year. Some put jackets most often has a lot of crimps per inch, and feels soft or blankets on their sheep to keep hay out of the wool; and comfortable next to your skin, but it does not wear those fleeces may be especially clean, although cover- well in a rug. These attributes can be measured precisely, ing is not essential to the growing of good wool. The but most spinners just assess them by eye and by feel. best fleeces will have been skirted to remove any dirty, In raw fleece, the fibers are coated with grease (lanolin stained, or inferior wool; they will also contain only min- and other natural body oils), condensed perspiration, and imal amounts of hay, chaff, or burrs, which are hard to dust; all this is removed when the fleece is washed or remove. scoured. Washing your own fiber is easy, although there Wool fibers usually group together in clusters called are a few tricks to it. We suggest that you start with 1 locks. By gently pulling a few sample locks out of the clean wool for your first efforts. fleece, you can determine the staple length (or average Washing reveals any luster or shininess of the wool, length) of the locks (usually between 3 and 8 inches), and exposes its true color, which may be pure white, off-white, yellowish, silver to charcoal gray, jet black, tan, or reddish brown. After washing, fleece can be dyed in Tip the wool, or you can dye the spun yarn. Dyeing fleece is A LOCK OF WOOL fun, because there are many ways to combine different colors into a single yarn with either very subtle or bold variegation. 1 Many of us didn’t, however, and if what you’ve got is raw fleece, you don’t have to rush to the store for clean stuff. If you’re wash- ing your own wool, remember the following: don’t agitate, don’t change water temperatures suddenly, and don’t scrub. If you do all those things, you will produce felt, not clean, spinnable wool, Cut or Staple length and you’ll find yourself embarking on a different craft voyage. butt end ©F+W Media, Inc. All rights reserved. F+W Media grants permission for any or all pages in this brochure to be copied for personal use. 1 Preparing the Wool for Spinning Wool is easier to spin if it’s prepared by separating the Handcards or carders are good for preparing medium fibers into a loose, fluffy arrangement. You can buy a to short wool (staple length 4 inches or less); drumcard- fleece and do the washing and prepa ration yourself, or ers can handle short, medium, or long wool, de pending pay a little more (usually $15 to $25 per pound) for wool on how they are set up. Carding is a blending process, that’s been washed, dyed (if you choose), and processed. good for evening out the variations in color, crimp, or Special tools have been designed for preparing wool and length between different parts of a fleece; for blending other fibers. A flicker, flick carder, or pet comb (average different colors of dyed fleece; and for com bin ing wool cost for the latter is under $10) is excellent for loosening with mohair, angora, or other individual locks and pulling out any short or weak fibers. fibers. Wool can be lifted off Flicking works best for a fleece with distinct locks and a a carder as a fluffy, pillow-like, staple length of 4 inches or more. Mini-combs, Viking rectangular batt. Spinners combs, and English wool combs work best for wool with sometimes roll batts into locks that are at least 4 inches long. You can comb sev- slender tubes called rolags eral locks at a time. Combing is a separating process—it or pull them lengthwise into removes any short fibers as it loosens and aligns the long long strands called slivers or fibers. After combing, the long fibers are pulled into a rovings.2 The carding process smooth, continuous strand called a top (the short fibers can easily be automated, and are set aside for a different use or discarded); fibers can there are dozens of small mills be pulled off with your fingers, or through a tool called a around the United States that diz (a small disk with a hole in it). A few mills are set up to sell carded batts or rovings; do combing, and sometimes you can buy commercially some will custom-card wool combed tops of wool or other fibers. that you supply. HANDCARDS AND ROLAG 2 When used with reference to commercially prepared fiber, the terms top, sliver, and roving are often applied interchangeably, although there are technical differences between these forms of fiber preparation. FLICKER AND LOCK COMB AND TOP DRUMCARDER AND BATT Making Yarn Many kinds of spinning tools are available today—every- hands that shapes the yarn. The spinner is in control; the thing from simple wooden handspindles to high-tech tool is just an assistant. electric spinners, from antique wool and flax wheels to No matter which tool you use, the process of spinning modern wheels. The diversity of spinning tools is a won- is basically the same. The first step is drafting or pull- derful story in itself, but it’s important to remember that in ing fibers out of the prepared lock, top, batt, or roving. handspinning, it’s the skill and sensitivity of the spinner’s Drafting just a few fibers at a time makes a very thin ©F+W Media, Inc. All rights reserved. F+W Media grants permission for any or all pages in this brochure to be copied for personal use. 2 together into a continuous process. Spinners working with combed, long-staple wool often draft by moving their hands just a few inches—about half the length of the fibers—in a gesture called a short draw. Then they JOIN deliberately guide the twist into the drafted fibers, making TWISTING a smooth, dense worsted yarn. Spinners using short- staple wool that has been carded and rolled into rolags may use a long draw, moving one hand back and forth with a full swing of the arm, simultaneously drafting and twisting up to three feet of fuzzy, puffy woolen yarn before winding it on. You’ll see many variations and combinations of these techniques if you watch different people spin; as with most decisions in spinning, what’s “right” is what- ever works best for the individual spinner and the fiber. Because drafting methods can be so unique, there is no precise, consistent way of describing them. When you turn loose fiber into yarn; drafting many fibers makes a thick yarn. Twisting yarn, you make a singles yarn the drafted fibers makes yarn. Twist holds the fibers (a single strand), with the fibers together so they don’t slip apart or rub loose; one of the all twisted in the same direction. SINGLES spinner’s skills is determining the appropriate amount Singles yarn can be finished and of twist for a given yarn. At the start, you want enough used as is, but spinners often take twist to make the yarn strong . and not so much twist an extra step, twisting two or more that the strand you are spinning turns itself into indepen- strands of singles together to make dent corkscrews. After drafting and twisting a length of plied yarn, which is usually stronger, yarn, you can let it wind onto the bobbin of the spinning more uniform, and easier to handle wheel or wind it onto a spindle by hand, then start draft- than singles. The simplest plied yarn ing and twisting more yarn. When you finish spinning one twists two singles together in the batch of fiber, you make a join by splicing on a new sup- opposite direction to their original ply. A careful join is invisible in the finished yarn. spinning (Z singles, S plied). A bal- Turn the wheel (or spindle) anced yarn is a special type of plied one way and you get Z-twist yarn, where the twist used in plying exactly balances the yarn. Turn it the other way twist used in spinning and straightens out the fibers.

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